Eastman trial: Crown rejects mafia theory

The mafia didn't murder Australian Federal Police assistant commissioner Colin Winchester and a large body of evidence points to former federal public servant David Eastman, a prosecutor says.

In his closing argument in the ACT Supreme Court trial, Murugan Thangaraj SC said evidence clearly indicated Eastman, a retired treasury officer now 73, had purchased the murder weapon nine days before the 1989 murder.

Mr Thangaraj told the jury one witness, Raymond Webb, had identified Eastman as a man he saw at the home of Queanbeyan man Louis Klarenbeek who had advertised a Ruger 10/22 rifle for sale in the Canberra Times on December 31, 1988.

Mr Klarenbeek, who has since died, never identified Eastman as the buyer, telling police the man to whom he sold the rifle wasn't one of 12 men whose photographs were shown to him in a police photo board.

Mr Thangaraj said there was a mountain of evidence against one of the men on the photo board while the other 11 were men randomly photographed in the Canberra city centre.

Mr Klarenbeek subsequently admitted to his wife the man was among the photographs. He told her he was scared the man might return and shoot him.

Mr Thangaraj said Mr Klarenbeek's defensiveness was understandable as he had sold guns to a number of people without requiring them to produce a firearms licence, telling his wife he did not want to betray them.

He said Eastman, who has pleaded not guilty to murder, asserted there was a reasonable possibility the mafia murdered Mr Winchester.

"There are too many coincidences in this case for someone other than Mr Eastman to have murdered Mr Winchester," Mr Thangaraj told the court.

"A large body of evidence points to Mr Eastman. The possibility of the mafia or anyone else murdering Mr Winchester is not a reasonable possibility."

The prosecutor said Mr Winchester was shot twice in the head at close range as he parked in the driveway next to his Canberra home about 9.15pm on January 10, 1989.

He said this was a massive investigation and police threw everything at it, calling on experts from Australia and overseas.

Although the murder weapon had never been found, there was compelling evidence as to its identity.

A pair of spent cartridge cases recovered from the murder scene identified it as a US-made Ruger 10/22 semi-automatic rifle. Police narrowed that down to just one particular gun, Ruger 10/22 Serial Number 11296920.

Cartridge cases recovered from Woodside, Victoria, where the gun was fired by a previous owner, and from Captain's Flat, near Canberra, where it was test-fired by Mr Klarenbeek, matched those from the murder scene.

Mr Thangaraj said there was also clear evidence of the chain of ownership of the gun as it passed through different owners to Mr Klarenbeek who allegedly sold the gun to Eastman.

"The Crown says that if you accept the Klarenbeek weapon is the murder weapon, the Crown is well on its way to proving Mr Eastman is the murderer," he said.

He told the jury the case had so far run for 57 days and they had heard from 127 crown witnesses and considered 252 crown exhibits.